


Journey Into Fear

by ant5b



Category: Disney Duck Universe, DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), PKNA - Paperinik New Adventures
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Donald ISN'T stranded on a desert island, Donald used to be the Duck Avenger, Duck Avenger - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Moonvasion AU, and his family actually misses him maybe, background dellumbra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2020-10-26 11:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: It took Della a decade to make it to the gates of the mansionIt takes Donald two weeks.(But he doesn't stay).





	1. Chapter 1

Della would’ve forgotten about the Spear of Selene, crash landed in the woods, were it not for Huey. 

On the second day after her return to Earth, the boys are showing her around the houseboat where they spent the first ten years of their lives. Webby tags along because she has a thirst for knowledge, even of the most mundane, and she proves a captive audience as the boys tell stories of all the times they almost burned the houseboat down, and the one time Dewey did. 

They talk about Donald, too. They talk about him most of all actually, how he taught Louie how to knit and sew and drove Huey to every Junior Woodchuck meeting and watched _ High School is a Musical _ with Dewey whenever he asked. They tell Della about his bad luck in work and in life, how he embarrassed them at every turn by gushing about them to total strangers with the baby photos on his phone to back him up. She learns about how he was so undone with worry for them that he started _ molting. _

Della feels a lick of shame at her earlier indignation at finding her twin wasn’t here to greet her as she’d hoped. After all, it’s not as though he’d put his life on hold while she was gone, with no idea that she would ever be coming back. 

“He deserved a break,” Louie says, looking down, and Della privately agrees. 

“You must’ve just missed him!” Dewey exclaims, throwing himself into her lap as they sit around the houseboat’s dining table. From the moment they met he’s been so casually affectionate with her that it makes part of Della want to hold him close and never let go. It makes another part of her squirm, so unused to human contact that every touch is a shock to her system.

“Literally,” Huey says slowly, “he left for the bus stop about twenty minutes before you showed up at the front door.” Here he hesitates. “Um...Mom, how did you get back, anyway?”

“Oh, in my ship,” Della replies, “the Spear—”

_ “The Spear of Selene?” _ Dewey crows, cutting her off. There are stars in his eyes as he leaps to his feet and holds her face in his hands, making her jump. “Like, the super real actual _ spaceship? _ And it’s _ here?” _

Della looks off to the side, unsure whether she should expect help from one of the other kids, but Huey, Louie, and Webby are all trying not to look as eager as Dewey does, and failing rather completely in the attempt. 

“Uh, yeah,” she replies. “Do you...want to see it?” 

Against her better wishes, Della finds herself tromping down the side of Killmotor Hill with nearly the entire family in tow. 

It was a futile wish, but Della had truly hoped to never again lay eyes on the craft that had been her home and prison for the last decade. She crashed it in the woods with the intent to forget about it, let the trees and the weeds and the elements have their way with it so she wouldn’t have to return.

But the kids wanted to see a real-life spaceship, and Scrooge is unwilling to let her out of his sight when she leaves the mansion, so to the crash site they go. 

What they find is an empty clearing. 

There are pieces of debris, titanium alloy and gold plating, and a deep rut in the earth nearly twelve feet deep and nearly twice as long. There are all the signs of a crash landing, save for the vehicle that crashed. 

The Spear of Selene is gone, like it blinked out of existence. 

“Are you sure this is the spot?” Dewey asks quizzically. 

“Of course I’m sure,” Della says, and she is. She counted her footsteps as she ran for the mansion, measured every breath of real, fresh oxygen as a breeze caressed her face for the first time in a decade, touched the branches of every tree she passed. She’s more than sure. 

“Could someone have stolen it?” Webby offers, keeping close to Dewey and tugging him back when he gets too close to the edge of the deep rut in the ground. 

“There’s no evidence of any sort of heavy machinery being here,” Huey responds. He’s inspecting the trench where the Spear made landfall, jotting down notes in his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. He goes on to say, “Based on the displacement of the tree line, the burn marks, and the direction of this second indentation, I think someone took off in the Spear of Selene.”

“Bless me bagpipes,” Scrooge murmurs. He’s not even looking at the scraps of gold littering the ground around him, doesn’t tear his gaze from her as if she might vanish if he were to glance away. “How far could they get, lass? We don’t even know who might have it, be they foe or some hapless hooligan.”

Della shrugs. “It’s got a big hunk of gold powering it, so theoretically you could travel for hundreds of thousands of miles in space. But vertical takeoff is tricky, so it’s more likely that they landed, or crashed, somewhere else on Earth. Unless they were unlucky enough to hit the emergency takeoff button, but the chances of _ that _happening…”

Scrooge nods, rubbing his brow with his expression strangely shuttered. He glances down and back up very quickly. “I…” 

Whatever he means to say sticks in his throat, and he’s drawing her into his arms, his grip almost bruising, and she holds him just as tightly. It’s barely been two days and she still expects to float when she jumps, and the memory of that feeling of weightlessness terrifies her now. But Scrooge’s embrace, crushing in its force, grounds her as much as cradling her sons’ faces does, and she’s grateful for it. Grateful for _ him, _her father if not by blood then by choice. 

“Ach, lass,” he says, voice wavering like she’s never heard before, “I still can’t believe you’re here. I just wish we’d waited a day to send your brother on that blasted cruise of his.”

“Nah, it’s fine Uncle Scrooge,” she replies just as softly, “Donnie deserved a break. Besides, what’s waiting a month after ten years on the moon?”

(They don’t know it, and perhaps they never will, but while his family investigates a mystery they don’t understand the depth of, two hundred thousand miles away, Donald is led into a cell in the newly militarized Tranquility. His feathers have been singed by laser fire and he is surrounded by alien faces and alien hostility on an alien planet that is not a planet. 

When he sees the fleet of gold ships, he thinks about Scrooge. Scrooge and his desperate, fruitless years-long search, the dozens of ships he sent out their purpose now twisted, meant to hunt down his sister rather than rescue her. 

When he meets and is used as a punching bag by Lieutenant Penumbra, he thinks about Della. Della, who is alive. Della, who was alone. Della, surviving for eleven years just out of reach, making friends out of a moody, mean alien soldier who helps him escape and turns against her own people so she can protect his. 

Before Lunaris reveals the truth behind his invasion, the sick and twisted _ personal _nature of the sort of hatred that drives the planned murder of children, he thinks about the kids. He thinks about his boys, his sons, so bright and brave and clever like him and his sister at the start. He thinks about the daughter he never expected but eagerly welcomed, as if she’d been there from the beginning. He fears for them and their eagerness to leap into adventure, wishes he could protect them from a world where those adventures have consequences. But he’s hundreds of thousands of miles away and he isn’t protecting anyone if he can’t get past Lunaris to send his warning, get past Lunaris to escape. 

As reality unfurls around him and the gilded tin can he strapped himself into begins to buckle and burn, Donald thinks about home. He thinks about lazy Sunday mornings making pancakes in ridiculous shapes with the boys in the houseboat kitchen. He thinks about sparring with Webby and hugging Scrooge accidentally on purpose during game night. For the first time in eleven years he thinks about Uno and the rush that came with being the Duck Avenger. He remembers how powerful he felt channeling his anger into a battle that mattered, where the prize was bloody knuckles and a supervillain imprisoned, not a treasure room. He remembers how all of that power was nothing compared to holding Della’s sons in his arms mere moments after hatching. 

As the escape pod makes landfall, he thinks about home.) 

  
  


It took Della a decade to make it to the gates of the mansion 

It takes Donald two weeks. 

Not long after dawn, he washes up on the shore of a small village on the eastern coast of Henmark that he wouldn’t be able to pronounce the name of even without his particular vocal troubles. He scares some locals out on a family fishing trip half to death by splashing drunkenly through the shallows, asking to borrow a phone in broken English. 

His clothes are tattered and burned and he’s lost more feathers than he started out with before he left for the cruise that never happened. The family must think he’s a tourist, mugged and left for dead, and they sit him down on a bench and wrap a blanket around his shoulders and push a cell phone into his hands, clucking over his head in worried Henish. 

Donald takes the phone gratefully, but once it’s in his hands he freezes. 

At his fingertips is a way to call his family, so devastatingly, deceptively simple. Not twenty four hours ago he risked his life to send a transmission that he doesn’t know if they will ever receive. Not twenty-four hours ago he risked his life to come back, but now that he’s back, he finds himself not wanting to involve them more than he already has. 

The Moonlander’s invasion is mere weeks away. Donald left Penumbra behind, unconscious and writhing on the ground, at the mercy of her general who spoke his sons’ names as if he had some twisted claim to them. Who has been watching his family for who knows how long, spying on them, analyzing their every weakness. 

The kids will have just gotten their mom back. Della has barely had two weeks to reunite with her sons and Scrooge with his niece. They deserve more time before he has to come back and ruin everything like he always does. 

Maybe...maybe he’ll give them that time. 

He hands the phone back and he can feel the concern of the family watching him double. 

“Is there a harbor close by?” he asks, his voice raw. “Ships leaving the country and stuff?”

They say yes, but is there someone they can call for him? Donald is sure that if he calls the mansion and one of the kids picks up, hell if Beakley answers, he’ll fall apart right there on the sand and let the full force of his grief and terror tear him apart. So no, a phone call isn’t an option. 

They offer to drive him to the hospital, which he can admit he probably needs, but he refuses that too. He can’t waste any more time. 

They finally offer to drive him to the harbor, and Donald agrees. 

Soon there is the blare of foghorns and the rumbling of deckhands, seabirds cresting the waves and smog in the air. The grandmother makes him keep the blanket they’ve placed around his shoulders, and the father gives him a thick sweater to replace his tattered uniform. They stuff a backpack into his arms filled with enough food for nine of him and laugh kindly at his bumbling attempts to hand it back. 

He thanks them, these kind strangers, and scours the harbor for a ship that will give him passage in exchange for work. He’s a little out of practice, but if adventuring with Scrooge had taught him anything it was how to profit off your talents. Donald knows how to run a ship like he knows the back of his hand and he’s strong, and if they refuse him he’ll use what being Duck Avenger taught him and just sneak on board anyway. 

But he finds a shady cargo ship that doesn’t ask to see his papers and is headed for London, where he should be able to find direct passage to Duckburg. He has to sneak aboard a cargo ship in London, but even that isn’t so bad. He learns the crewmember rotation quickly and spends long hours asleep in dark corners where they don’t bother to check, and lying atop the shipping containers as the sun starts to dip beneath the endless horizon. He stargazes, finds all the made-up constellations he created with the boys when they were small, and all the time the moon hangs ponderously overhead, a brilliant looming thing that grows fuller every night. 

He has to get back to Duckburg. He has to prepare. 

He still doesn’t call his family. He tells himself that if they never received his transmission then they’ll think he’s still on the cruise, relaxing like he was supposed to. He tells himself that he doesn’t want them to worry about him, because he’s not worth that. 

If he was lucky, they would’ve received his desperate warning. They’ll be searching for him, they’ll be looking to the sky with defiance in their eyes as they prepare for invasion. But when is Donald ever lucky? 

When he arrives in Hookbill Harbor, it’s already night. This part of Duckburg is silent at night, far from the bustle of downtown, save for the creak of boats swaying gently on the water and the susurration of lapping waves. For a moment he stands stock still on the docks, taking in the distant, brilliant lights of Duckburg, and it finally hits him that he’s back. 

The moon was his every nightmare made real, but he’s not there anymore. He’s on Earth, surrounded by the familiar, and every little thing comes as a shock. The streetlights are almost alien in their dim glow, the natural blanketing hush of night not a precursor to danger. He’s back. For now, he’s safe. 

A car backfires on the street, jolting him out of his daze. 

He turns and sees the mansion high above the treeline, windows aglow, and he is almost brought to his knees by sheer emotion. His kids are there, his _ sister, _in the flesh and not still images on a madman’s screen. 

Without waiting any longer, he hightails it for Killmotor Hill. It’s not unlike his frantic dash to the Spear of Selene, when he looked heavenward and his heart stopped as he watched his every futile, heartsick fantasy for the last decade unfold before his eyes. That same breathless, disbelieving hope floods him now, propelling him forward even as his muscles ache and bones creak. 

All at once he’s standing on the front steps of the mansion, right back where he started two weeks and a lifetime ago. 

A part of this still feels unreal, like if he makes the wrong move he’ll wake up in his cell on the moon with the Earth a blue-green speck through the barred window. His car is still parked beside the closed garage door; he remembers that he meant to move it inside before he left. The air smells of freshly cut grass. It’s real, he tells himself. He’s home. 

He raises his hand to knock. 

“Hurry up, kids, the movie’s starting!”

“Mom, you know we can just pause it, right?”

“No way? You can pause live TV now?”

Donald’s fist trembles in the air because that’s _ Della’s _voice just on the other side of the door. Della and Louie, and he can hear Huey’s voice in the distance, like he’s responding from another room over. The sound of running feet heralds the entrance of Dewey and Webby, all of them speaking loudly and at once, and Donald abandons the front door for one of the windows instead. 

Peering through the glass, he sees his family clustered in the foyer. Louie is carrying a six-pack of Pep into the TV room that he definitely won’t be sharing with anyone. Dewey and Webby are exchanging playful blows as they make their way down the stairs and Donald’s chest warms upon hearing their laughter, seeing their smiling faces, even as a reminder for them to be careful sits heavily on the back of his tongue. Huey pokes his head out of the doorway, warning his siblings that Louie will start the movie without them. 

And then, like it’s the most normal thing in the world, as if Donald hasn’t spent the last decade driving himself mad with what could have been, _ Della _is there. She steps out from behind Huey as she tries to cajole the last two kids inside and a rushing sound fills Donald’s head, muffling everything else. 

Della looks almost no different than the day she left. Her hair is longer, there are shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep, but she’s still wearing the scarf he gave her for Christmas. Then he sees her prosthetic leg and all of his terror comes flooding right back to the surface. 

There’s an invasion on the way that nobody knows about. Donald is certain now that his message was never received; Della wouldn’t look so calm if she knew her life was endangered, if her children had been threatened. She’s already lost ten years of her life to the moon, and now he sees that it’s taken her body too. He refuses to let it rob his sister of anything else. 

Dewey and Webby finally stop play fighting long enough to enter the TV room. Della watches them go by with a fond look. Then she turns, and Donald catches one last, brief glimpse of her face before she closes the door behind her. 

Donald stands at the window for a handful of seconds more, then a minute, and then two. He can’t bring himself to knock, to bring calamity in his wake once more. He wants someone walk out and see him, to drag him inside so he can hold his kids and shake Della and yell at her for leaving and hug her until his arms are sore from it. 

But nobody sees him. And so Donald is left with a decision to make. 

All he has to do is knock. Tell his family where he’s been, what’s about to happen. Be the bearer of bad news and never the one who can offer a solution because he’s bad luck, a jinx, the worst. The boring uncle. 

Or. 

Or he can walk away (not forever, _ never _forever, he would die before he abandoned his boys like Della was careless enough to do) and offer his help in the only way anyone might respect. He can prepare them for invasion, gather their allies, for once not be a failure. It would only be a few weeks. A few extra weeks for Della to get to know her sons without Donald in the way. He’s sure that it’s what the boys would want, what Della would want. 

In the end, it was hardly a difficult decision. He will always choose his family first, even if he’s not a part of it.

Donald steps away from the window, and the Duck Avenger turns to face the city. 

  
  


They’ve barely parted ways following breakfast the morning after their adventure at Fort Duckburg, when the doorbell rings. 

Scrooge is halfway to his study, where there’s a pile of contracts and negotiations and monotony waiting for him that he’d rather like to get a crack at, and he groans at the interruption. 

“Kids,” he calls, “could one of you get that?”

“I got!” Huey shouts back. 

“No, I got it!” Dewey retorts even louder. 

“No yelling in the house!” Scrooge hollers. He waits in the hall as he hears the sound of the front door opening and almost immediately closing. 

“Well?” he asks, “who was it?”

“There was no one at the door, Uncle Scrooge!” Huey replies. 

Scrooge rolls his eyes, continuing on his way to his study.

“Ding-dong ditch the home of Scrooge McDuck, will you?” he mutters as he opens the door and steps inside. “We’ll see how funny you think you are when you’re caught on camera for trespassing.” 

“Y’know, Gramps, talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity,” says a voice he hasn’t heard for a decade. 

“Jumping jackanapes!” Scrooge yelps, clutching at his chest. 

The Duck Avenger is sitting with his feet propped up on Scrooge’s desk, looking amused as all get out. 

“Haven’t heard that one before,” he replies cheekily. 

“How did—” Scrooge sputters, “what are—what in _ blazes _are you doing here? Nobody’s seen you in—”

“In ten years, I know,” the Duck Avenger says, smile falling as he drops his feet to the floor and stands. Coupled with the blank white eyes of his mask, his expression immediately turns grave. “Sorry, McDuck, but I didn’t come here to socialize. I’ve got news. The bad kind. Is your niece around?”

“Della? Yes, she’s here.” Scrooge’s eyes narrow as suspicion prickles at him. “How did you know—”

The Duck Avenger walks past him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies, looking up and down the hall. He decides to go left, which is infuriatingly the direction Scrooge saw Della last. 

“I will ‘worry’ about whatever I please,” Scrooge bites out, following just a step behind. “What news could be so important that you’d come out of retirement to deliver it? And what does it have to do with my niece?”

“How about ‘the fate of the world is at stake’ important?” the Duck Avenger snarks back as they turn a corner, “and it’s not just your niece. This affects your entire—” 

He stops, walking and talking, and Scrooge nearly plows into his back. When he looks out from behind the Duck Avenger, Louie looks back at them with wide eyes from where he’s standing at the base of the stairs leading to his and the boys’ room. 

“—family,” the Duck Avenger finishes quietly. 

“Umm, Uncle Scrooge,” Louie begins warily, “who’s the superhero guy?”

Scrooge pinches the bridge of his nose. “Louie, the Duck Avenger. Duck Avenger, my nephew, Louie.”

“That...doesn’t really answer my question.”

“Lad, do you know where your mother is?” Scrooge asks when the Duck Avenger remains stonily silent between them. 

“Uh, yeah,” Louie replies, still eyeing them strangely. “I think she was setting up that nerd game with Huey again? Legends of Legend-something?”

“Thank you, Louie,” Scrooge starts to say, only for the Duck Avenger to walk off without another word, once again going inexplicably in the right direction. As Scrooge hastens to catch up, Louie surprises him by following too. 

“Is Mom in trouble or something?” he asks as they approach the stairs to the first floor. 

“No, lad,” Scrooge replies, watching the Duck Avenger take the stairs three at a time, “Though I’m beginning to think we all might be.”

The Duck Avenger has already yanked open the door to the TV room by the time Scrooge and Louie catch up with him, but he’s just standing in the doorway. Della and Huey are playing their strange video game and haven’t noticed their presence. 

“How about we take it easy this time, kiddo?” Della is saying, “We can just farm the whole time.”

“D-Della Duck,” the Duck Avenger says, and his smooth voice wavers. 

Della stiffens at the sound of a stranger’s voice, leaping to her feet to face him with hands already balled into fists, battle-ready. But her shoulders slump and expression softens in surprise when she sees who’s standing in the doorway.

Huey looks over his shoulder and nearly falls off the couch with a squawk. 

“Duck Avenger?” they say in unison, though Huey nearly shouts it. 

“I can’t believe it,” Della says, laughing as she walks around the couch, “I didn’t think you’d still be around after all these years. How’s the avenging business been treating you?”

The Duck Avenger takes a moment to respond. 

“I’m retired, actually,” he eventually says, stiff and formal. “But we’ve got a crisis on our hands that I couldn’t ignore, and you’re the only person with the knowledge to help us.”

“Oh?” Della replies, expression already darkening. “What sort of crisis?”

“According to my intelligence you were trapped—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Duck Avenger, sir?” 

The Duck Avenger stops speaking and looks down at Huey, who’s standing near the arm of the couch with his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook clutched tight to his chest. 

“Yes?” the Avenger responds, voice remarkably patient despite his urgency to get to Della and deliver his news. 

“Sorry,” Huey says, his knuckles jutting out he’s clutching his guidebook so tightly, “I didn’t mean to interrupt, it’s just that...well I-I’m a really big fan of yours. You’re Duckburg’s first ever superhero! I wrote a whole entry about you in the JWG.”

“You did?” the Duck Avenger replies, startled. His brows rise behind his mask. 

“Y-yeah!” Huey says, smiling a little now. He thumbs open his guidebook and opens it a two-page spread with a drawing of the Duck Avenger of yesteryear and his gadgets, alongside very neatly written notes. The Duck Avenger crouches to get a better look, and Huey’s expression of unrestrained joy is one that warms Scrooge, despite the niggling anxiety that the Avenger’s return has triggered. 

The Duck Avenger taps one of the drawings on the page with a gloved hand. “I didn’t actually build my X-Transformer shield. It was given to me as a gift when I traveled to the future.”

Huey’s eyes positively sparkled. “You’ve been to the future? What was it like? Were there flying cars? Has humankind’s standard of living improved on a universal basis or are we still divided by unequal social classes? How was the food?” 

“It was very…futuristic,” the Duck Avenger replies, smiling softly. “Now, the message I have for you is for the rest of your family, too. Why don’t you and your brother round up everyone else?”

“Okay!” Huey says eagerly, closing his guidebook with a snap and tucking it under his arm. He hurries over to Louie and starts tugging him out the door when his green-clad brother refuses to do more than lazily shuffle his feet as he eyes the Avenger with suspicion.

“That was the Duck Avenger!” Scrooge hears Huey gush as they step out into the foyer. 

“I _ know,” _ Louie retorts, his voice faint as they move further into the mansion. 

Della steps forward first. “Okay, DA, whatever this is—”

“I was waiting for them to leave,” the Duck Avenger mutters, his voice hushed as he stands back to his full height, “you’re all in grave danger, the kids especially. Della, the Moonlander general, Lunaris? The one you left the plans for your spaceship with? He’s using it to create a fleet of ships to invade Earth. To invade Duckburg.” 

Scrooge blinks, so floored by the deluge of information that the gravity of the situation, of the Duck Avenger’s imploring expression, doesn’t set in yet. But Della blanches immediately. 

“No, I—no way, that’s not possible,” she says, speaking fast and shaking her head, “The Moonlanders were my friends! The general he—he helped me get home.”

“I’ve been monitoring the transmissions coming from the moon,” the Duck Avenger states in a tone that brooks no argument. “He’s been spying on us, on Duckburg, and on Scrooge specifically. This invasion is happening. I came here to warn you so you can prepare, because it looks like Lunaris has it out for you personally.”

“You say that the moon isn’t a planet a few times and suddenly they all want to kill you,” Della mutters, giggling shakily. 

“Lass,” Scrooge begins worriedly, reaching for his niece. She lets him take her hand, squeezing tightly. 

“How long do we have?” he asks the Duck Avenger. 

The Avenger blinks, tearing his gaze away from Della as her expression falls to anguish. “Less than a month. I’m sorry I don’t have anything more specific than that.” 

Scrooge nods slowly. “We’ll need to start preparing right away. Inform all of our allies, evacuate the city if we can.”

“I’ve already contacted Amunet and D’jinn in Egypt, and stuck Storkules and Selene out of Ithaquack,” the Duck Avenger informs him succinctly. 

Scrooge chuckles wryly. “I guess the moon people weren’t the only ones keeping tabs on us.”

The Duck Avenger laughs, strangely hoarse. “Your family is a danger magnet. I’d be an idiot not to.”

There are footsteps coming down the stairs, and the Duck Avenger fishes for something on his belt. “The El Pato storm should be hitting any day now, so do what you can to prepare before then. Keep your family together.” He pulls a communicator off his belt and places it in Scrooge’s hand. “Closed frequency. If you ever need to contact me.”

He moves to one of the windows, but Della finds her voice in that moment and her words stop him in his tracks. 

“Wait. What about Donald?”

The Duck Avenger glances over his shoulder. 

“Your brother? Why, what about him?”

Della presses her hand against her forehead, smiling incredulously. “He’s on a _ cruise. _That jerk. He’s gonna miss the whole invasion.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” the Duck Avenger replies tonelessly. He tugs open a window, vanishing outside mere seconds before Beakley and the kids spill through the doors. 

  
  


When the Moonlanders’ ships touch down, they’re ready. For the most part. 

The Duck Avenger joins Gizmoduck in initiating first contact, because they’re not going to come out swinging if it means they can avoid conflict altogether. Scrooge can only see this ending in a fight, but Della remains optimistic that a series of hilarious mixups have led them to where they are now, despite Penumbra’s message. 

But the Duck Avenger’s warning proves true, and both heroes are almost immediately fired upon by very trigger-happy Moonlanders. 

A chunk of the city has already been quietly evacuated, and the rest quickly led to shelters of Gyro’s design, each as impenetrable as the Money Bin. Their allies: Storkules, Selene, D’jinn, Amunet and a handful of her best fighters, Gizmoduck, Launchpad and his purple friend, and countless others are patrolling the streets, taking out whatever contingents they come across. 

Meanwhile, Scrooge, Della, and Beakley sequester their family in the Money Bin as the chaos unfolds. Scrooge entrusts Gyro to arm the Unstoppabomb, the location of which they changed every other week to keep the Moonlanders from finding it. Lunaris has yet to make his presence known on the battlefield, and Scrooge wants to have it ready for when he does. 

And then a transmission is beamed directly to the Money Bin, and they realize that maybe they weren’t as ready as they thought. 

Lunaris’s visage takes up the entirety of the screen in the dark office, blue and stony-skinned, wreathed in gleaming gold as he stares them down from his seat upon a throne. 

_ “Greetings, puny Earthers; I am General Lunaris of the vastly superior Planet Moon,” _he begins, his voice sonorous and smooth.

“I see what you mean about that being a whole thing with them,” Scrooge murmurs to Della, as her expression grows stricken. 

She hardly reacts at his joke and he doesn’t blame her. She’s watching her trust be thrown back in her face in the worst way imaginable. Instead, he reaches out to squeeze her shoulder and hopes it’s something of a comfort. 

Lunaris continues speaking on the projector screen, a one-way feed meaning they have no way of responding. 

_ “ _ _ For too long, my people have lived in fear of your Earth hanging in the sky. The time has come for the Earth to fear _ us _ . I now wish to speak to Scrooge McDuck.” _ His stern expression cracks and a smirk slips through, his tone mocking, _ "Smarter than the smarties", eh? Perhaps on Earth.” _

“You egotistical extraterrestrial,” Scrooge growls and Della reaches up to clasp his hand on her shoulder, grounding him, and he quiets. 

_ “I see you’ve released your finest warriors onto the streets to combat my forces,” _ Lunaris says, uncompromising. _ “But where your warriors number in the few, we are legion. Your citizenry is weak, defenseless, and their so-called ‘shelters’ will not hold for long. We will seize them. You’ve improved your defenses, hidden your superweapon from me. Not for long. We know that you’ve sent your head scientist, Dr. Gearloose, to retrieve it. We will seize him, and the weapon. And by now _ _ you've retreated to the strength of your impenetrable ‘Money Bin’.” _

Scrooge barks a laugh, smiling down at the kids in an attempt to ease the worry on their faces. “Well, what he doesn’t know is that family—”

Lunaris cuts him off. 

_ “But as we all know your family is the greatest strength of all. That’s why I went after them first.” _

Silence hangs over the conference room like a leaden weight on a fraying rope. Della looks back at her children, as if to assure herself that all four are still there. They look back at her with wide eyes, expressions just as lost. 

On screen, Lunaris laughs, a sound that starts out low and gradually lengthens. _ “Confused?” _ he asks, “ _ I don’t blame you. I was planning on killing the children first: little Hubert, Dewford, Llewellyn, and darling Webbigail, who I nearly forgot. But then who should arrive in Tranquility not even a full day after her sudden departure, but the _ brother _ of Della Duck?” _

“No,” Della breathes. “No, no, no.”

“The Spear,” Huey whispers, so quietly he almost can’t be heard, “we couldn’t figure out who took the Spear of Selene.”

“No, he has to be lying,” Dewey says desperately, “Right, Mom? He’s gotta be lying.”

Della doesn’t have time to respond before the screen flickers, and Lunaris’ face is replaced by a recording of a massive chamber. There’s a huge, boxy golden device that resembles a cannon pointed at a circular porthole. On the other side of the porthole is a black ocean of stars and the Earth, hovering like a blue-green marble. The chamber is lined with tall, blue glowing screens that hang over the gold cannon. 

On one end of the cannon’s surface stands Lunaris. On the other, looking so small by comparison, is Donald. 

“It’s not real,” Louie whimpers. “It can’t be real. He’s on a _ cruise.” _

They watch Donald and Lunaris clash, again and again, and the kids cry out every time. The quality of the recording is crystal clear, so Della sees the gold clasp around her brother’s beak, that he’s been _ muzzled _as if he were a rabid dog. She sees the bruises and the bleeding cut on his temple and the desperation in his gaze as he tries to get past Lunaris. 

She sees, and so do her children. So does Scrooge. But she can’t look away, can’t do anything but grip her uncle’s hand so tightly her fingers go numb. 

They watch Donald reach the uppermost part of the cannon and shout into the gold device in his hands. Then he’s ducking Lunaris’ grasp and sliding down to the opposite end. He lands inside the cannon through a small, square opening, the roof of which seals shut behind him. The cannon rises and what resembles a massive gold bullet, with Donald inside, fires into the inky abyss of space. 

The recording ends, and Lunaris fills the screen once more. He attempts to maintain his lofty, menacing expression but fails when he can’t stop grinning. 

_ “You know, the fool tried to warn you before he fled. I suppose you must have received his message. But the escape pod he commandeered was never fit for space travel. Donald Duck never even made it to Earth; he would’ve burned up on reentry.” _

Lunaris leans forward, his cruel countenance blocking out everything else. 

_ “Let this be your first lesson, with four more to go. You will learn to fear the Moon. You will learn to fear _ me _ . Because as of now _ —” 

The projector flickers once more, revealing a live feed of a gargantuan Spear of Selene rocket, ten times bigger than any other in town, touching down over McDuck Manor.

_ “—Lunaris has arrived.” _

The projector flickers before finally going dark. 

Della’s legs buckle beneath her and she sinks to her knees, clapping a hand to her beak to muffle the broken, anguished sob that escapes her. 

She turns her head to the side and sees her sons clustered together, clutching at each other desperately. Huey’s shoulders tremble where he wraps his arms around his brothers, hiding his face. Dewey is blank faced, numb, and Louie sobs openly beside him. Beakley has gathered Webby into her arms, tears making silent tracks under her glasses. 

Scrooge practically collapses beside the boys, and he tugs all three of them into his arms. They go willingly, their cries fractured and aching. He bows his head over their shaking bodies, and tears leak out from between his tightly clenched eyes. 

Della thinks about Donald, walking out of the manor a handful of minutes before she bounded up the steps. Donald, who would’ve seen the Spear of Selene crash, who _ of course _would’ve immediately raced to it hoping to find her, consequences be damned. Donald, a prisoner on the moon because she allowed herself to be tricked by a murderer with an inferiority complex. Donald, who risked his life to warn them of what was to come. 

Donald, who she hasn’t seen in a decade. 

Donald, _ who burned up on reentry. _

Della watches what’s left of her family fall apart, and resolves then and there that she won’t lose any more of them. She’ll fly to the ends of the Earth, she’ll _ abandon _the Earth all over again, if it means they’ll be safe. 

Lunaris got what he wanted after all. 

Della Duck has never been more afraid in her entire life. 

  
  


The plan starts to fall apart when Lunaris lands his planetary engine, and Donald temporarily lose communication with Scrooge. 

Gyro (or one of his clones) has secured the Unstoppabomb, but he needs protection to get it to the Money Bin. So Donald gathers what allies he can to secure the payload and tells the rest to regroup at the Bin if they can. By the time he, Gizmoduck, Gyro, and Officer Cabrera arrive there are already over two dozen of their allies waiting for them. They’re all shouting over each other to be heard, panic thrumming through the room, but Donald ignores them for the time being in favor of searching for his family. 

All he sees is Scrooge sitting at the head of the table and Beakley standing just behind him. The latter is grim-faced, and she stares at Scrooge’s back with an anxious set to her brow. 

Scrooge is bent over their war table, expression thrown into shadow under the brim of his hat. 

Donald hurries over them while trying to make it seem like he’s not hurrying. 

“McDuck,” he says, nodding briskly, “Mrs. Beakley. We’ve got the Unstoppabomb.” He makes a show of looking around, keeping his face neutral so as to not betray his gnawing worry. “Della and the kids?” he asks. 

“Safe,” Scrooge grits out, raising his head to look Donald in the eye. 

He takes an involuntary step back at the sight of his uncle’s face. Scrooge looks ashen and ill, his eyes bloodshot. 

“Scrooge, are you—”

“I’m fine,” he snaps, sitting up taller in his chair. “Find a seat, Avenger. We’re discussing the next phase of our plan.”

  
  


The next phase is about as crazy as their plans usually go, in that it’s an all-out assault on the mansion. 

With literal gods on their side it’s not a struggle to hold the Moonlanders on the road at bay, but Scrooge still needs to get the Unstoppabomb inside the planetary engine without being detected. So while Launchpad and his purple friend (who very greatly resembles the superhero from that one show Donald and Della watched as kids) distract the guards on the front lawn, Donald swoops onto the roof of the mansion with his X-Transformer shield, Scrooge hanging on to his side. 

He still doesn’t know what’s happened with Scrooge, what might’ve changed in the handful of hours since the Moonlanders first made landfall. He’s been caustic, impatient and largely silent. When he isn’t giving orders he looks haunted and hollow, like a stray breeze could bowl him over. 

Donald doesn’t understand _ why _until they discover that the planetary engine over the mansion is an illusion and watch in horror as the real one docks over the Money Bin, perched like some odious bird of prey. Lunaris’ projected visage sneers down at them, fifty feet tall and just big enough to encompass the weight of his ego. 

It’s a setback to be sure, but Donald and Scrooge are still standing and Della and the kids are safe on the other side of the world and they still have the Unstoppabomb, so all things considered this invasion is going better than it could have. But Scrooge turns to face Lunaris, body trembling with rage and he’s _ crying, _ expression one of such hatred that Donald is taken sharply aback. 

“You talk about _ fear, _but you’re too scared to face me yourself, murderer!” he snarls. “You’re a bloody coward, Lunaris, and I’m going to make you pay for what you’ve done.”

Lunaris chuckles, leaning back in his golden throne. 

_ “I would like to see you try.” _

The hologram flickers and vanishes, leaving an empty night sky in its place. Scrooge is still breathing hard, letting his tears go cold on his cheeks, and Donald feels shaken and untethered. 

“Murderer?” he repeats, the words almost lost in the wind. “I thought—I thought Della and the kids were safe?”

“They are,” Scrooge mutters, turning away from him. “It’s my s...my nephew. He was stranded on the moon and we...and _ I _never knew. Again.” 

Donald’s stomach falls somewhere in the vicinity of his feet and he feels like he might just slip off the roof. 

“I…” he begins, his false voice ringing out in the stifling silence. His mask sits heavily on his face, and even in the face of his uncle’s grief he is loath to remove it. He needs the Duck Avenger to remain a secret, _ his _secret, now more than ever. 

“Come on,” Scrooge says sharply, turning to look out over the city and the planetary engine, gleaming gold even in the dark of night and so tall it pierces through the clouds. “Let’s regroup with the others. We’re going to need a new plan.”

Scrooge turns to go, and Donald almost stops him. He lifts his hand with the intent of grabbing his uncle’s arm, telling him the truth, apologizing for the deception. How can he explain that he never thought he _ mattered _, not like Della did? That he never thought his absence would be missed?

Donald lets him walk away without stopping him. 

And Scrooge called Lunaris a coward. 

  
  


Using the X-Transformer shield, Donald flies himself and Scrooge up to the bridge of the planetary engine with the Unstoppabomb in hand. 

Below, Storkules, Gizmoduck, and the rest of their allies that avoided capture after the failed assault on Killmotor Hill occupy the general’s forces out on the solid ice that used to be the bay. On the bridge, Donald and Scrooge make short work of the Moonlanders controlling the engine. 

It’s been years since Donald felt this in control, this adept. It isn’t the same anger that propelled him into the cape and cowl a decade ago, an untamed wildfire that burned all who came near. It’s focused now, blazing white hot, and for once Donald’s mind is clear. The Moonlanders have learned to fear him as they have Scrooge, and some of them simply abandon ship, running off the bridge as Lunaris bellows threats at their backs. 

Now it’s Scrooge whose anger is out of control, making his movements uncoordinated and rash. He faces off against Lunaris alone before Donald can join him, spitting venom in the furious general’s face. 

“Your invasion is finished, Lunaris,” Scrooge says, swiping the gun out of his hand with the end of his cane, “_ you’re _ finished. All of your talk and your fancy stolen ships and we’ve still outmatched you! As if we could ever be afraid of a coward who lets his people do the fighting for him.”

“You _ will _live in fear of me,” Lunaris roars. He delivers a fierce blow to Scrooge’s face that sends him stumbling back. 

“No!” Donald cries, wrestling with two Moonlander technicians who hadn’t fled with the others. He knows the pain that Lunaris’ fists inflict, the alien strength that makes each blow doubly powerful. “Lunaris, don’t—Scrooge, get back!”

His uncle barely has time to right himself before Lunaris grabs him by the front of his coat, lifting him into the air and slamming him onto the floor. 

Scrooge gasps, a sharp sound that cuts into Donald as surely as a knife between his ribs. 

“You will live in fear of me or you won’t live at all,” Lunaris hisses, and he picks Scrooge up again before bringing him crashing back down. 

This time, Scrooge doesn’t make a sound.

Donald’s vision goes red. 

He elbows one Moonlander in the face with such force that her visor shatters, and her cry of alarm is aborted by the blow he delivers to her throat. The other he throws over his shoulder, sending him crashing into the row of computer banks behind them. Then he runs for Lunaris, who’s crouched over his uncle’s prone body and removing the Unstoppabomb from within the folds of his coat. 

_ “Stay away from him,” _Donald thunders, tackling Lunaris. 

The general grunts, dropping the Unstoppabomb. They roll for a moment, Donald a flurry of kicking and punching limbs, before Lunaris grabs him by the back of the cape and throws him off. 

“Huh,” Lunaris chuckles, wiping away a trickle of blue blood from the corner of his busted lip. “In all my research of Earth, I never thought to factor a has-been hero into my plans. You’ve been more of a nuisance than your track record would have me expect.”

“Thanks,” Donald snaps, unclipping his cape from his shoulders, “I try my best.”

“Well your best won’t be enough,” Lunaris sneers. “All of you are _ nothing. _ I am mighty! I am the _ moon!” _

Movement outside the bridge’s dome shaped window draws Donald’s gaze, and his eyes widen behind his mask. 

“What’s your opinion on giant, mutated krill?”

Lunaris blinks. “Giant, mutated what?”

One of Mitzy’s forelimbs comes crashing through the window, plowing mercilessly through the bridge before burying itself in a row of consoles. 

As Lunaris cries what Donald assumes are moon-based explictives, he runs up behind the general with his cape held between his hands. He jumps up, throwing his cape over Lunaris’ face and gripping the ends in both hands. He falls back to the floor, using his weight to drag Lunaris down with him. Lunaris’ alarmed shout is muffled as he’s bent over backwards before falling all the way, his head bouncing against the floor. 

Donald lets him go and dashes over to the Unstoppabomb. 

“Fool!” Lunaris barks after him, but Donald doesn’t turn to look. He probably should have, because in the next moment his knee is aflame with pain, and the material of his suit has been scorched straight through to the flesh and feathers beneath. He stumbles and hits the ground hard. 

He looks back and sees Lunaris holding a ray gun. 

Lunaris opens his mouth, undoubtedly to gloat some more, when another far more treasured voice cuts him off. 

“You’re going to pay for what you did, Lunaris!”

Della slides down Mitzy’s forelimb, landing solidly within the torn up bridge. Her expression burns with rage he hasn’t seen in over a decade, and her fists tremble at her sides. Donald nearly cries at the sight of her. In fact, he does. 

Mitzy retracts her massive forelimb, destroying more of the bridge and the window in the process. Freezing cold wind fills the space, making Della’s hair and Lunaris’ cape flutter. 

“Della Duck,” Lunaris says with a slow, cruel smile. “I had wondered if we would meet again. Last I heard you were running scared. What’s the Earther term? With your tail between your legs?”

“I was afraid,” Della admits readily, “I was afraid for the safety of my children, of my family. And that blinded me from the truth.”

“And what would that be?” Lunaris replies mockingly. 

Della smiles, brimming with menace. 

_ “You’re _ the one who should be afraid.”

She launches herself at Lunaris, blocking his ray gun with her metal leg. She grabs his wrist and twists, forcing him to drop it. She doesn’t bother trying to pick it up herself, and instead kicks it so hard it goes flying out the shattered window. 

“I thought you were my friend!” Della yells as she blocks Lunaris’ punch and delivers one to his solar plexus. “I thought you wanted to help me! I thought I was doing the right thing by giving you the instruction manual because I _ trusted _ you. But you’re a liar, a coward, and a _ killer!” _

Lunaris catches her fist and propels it back to punch her in the face. He backhands her next, sending her sliding across the floor. 

“You were a naive, trusting fool,” Lunaris says, taking his time to walk over to her. “You might’ve managed to twist Penumbra’s mind, but she was replaceable. And your brother was a _ joke. _ I was planning to have him executed when he went ahead and got himself killed for me.”

“Shut up,” Della growls, rolling to her feet. 

Lunaris laughs. “What a comeback from the unstoppable Della Duck! Though perhaps I should’ve expected as much after felling the great Scrooge McDuck so easily.”

He gestures behind him with a wave of his hand, and Della sees their uncle’s crumpled form for the first time. 

She sways on her feet. “Is he…”

“Dead?” Lunaris finishes absently. “I have no idea.”

“You son of a—”

Della tries to kick his legs out from under him but he sends her back to the ground with a blow to her temple. 

“I tire of your prattle,” he sneers, pulling his fist back, “Goodbye, Della. Give my regards to Donald Duck.”

“Or you could do it yourself, you big palooka,” barks a voice that is now rasping and near unintelligible. 

“Donald?” Della breathes. 

Lunaris whirls around, eyes wide in full blown shock. 

He’s forced himself to his feet by clutching the side of an intact console, and though his bad leg trembles beneath him he stands tall. He’s ripped his mask off, disabled the voice modulator, reduced to Donald Duck once more. 

Based on the teary-eyed wonder on his sister’s face, maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. 

“How?” Lunaris demands, “nobody could have survived that. You should be_ dead.” _

“I’ve heard that one before,” Donald replies, laughing hoarsely. 

Lunaris shakes his head, glowering at him from across the bridge. “No. No, this time I’ll just have to do it right.” 

The general scarcely takes a step before the bridge shudders, throwing everyone off their feet. There’s a crunch of metal and a shower of sparks as a crimson spaceship crashes into the planetary engine, punching through the hull as if it were tinfoil. 

“What is happening!” Lunaris demands, his voice verging on shrill. 

The cockpit opens with a hiss and Penumbra stomps out, a wicked looking golden spear in hand. 

“I happened,” she growls. 

“Penny!” Della exclaims, tears thickening the sound of her voice. 

“Hi, Roomie,” Penumbra says, sparing Della a quick smile. For Donald there’s a nod, respect in her eyes. For Lunaris, there is fire and brimstone in her slate gray gaze. She doesn’t waste time before throwing herself at him, the blows she throws at his head powerful enough to crack a normal person’s skull. Unlike them, she matches him blow for blow and begins pushing him back. 

Donald rushes over to Scrooge, who hasn’t moved once. He’s feeling for a pulse, his throat desert dry, as Della falls to her knees beside him. 

“Donald,” she says, “Donald is he—”

His own heartbeat is racing in his ears, but after a few breathless moments he feels a telltale thrumming under his fingers. Donald sags against Della’s side. 

“He’s alive.” 

Della wraps her arm around his shoulders, exhaling heavily. 

They’re quiet for a beat, the only sounds that of the battle outside and Penumbra pummeling Lunaris behind them. 

“You know, when all this is over I’m going to kill you for scaring me like that,” she says, voice breaking. 

“Wouldn’t that be counter-productive?” he replies tiredly, though his smile is wry. 

“Hey!” Penumbra yells as she brings her clenched hands down on top of Lunaris’ head. “Still fighting the bad guy over here!”

In their scuffle, they send a black, oblong device skidding against a computer bank. 

Donald leaps to his feet. “The Unstoppabomb!” he cries, “We need it to destroy the engine!”

“The what?” Penumbra demands quizzically, shoving Lunaris back. 

Donald resists the urge to slap a hand over his eyes. Right, he’d almost forgotten about his voice. He points hard at the device. “That! Give it here!”

Penumbra spares the Unstoppabomb a glance before kicking it his way. Donald throws himself to the floor to catch it before it can go sliding out of the shattered window. He holds it up between himself and Della. 

There’s a big red button on the side of it, and they look at each other skeptically. 

“It can’t be that easy, can it?” Della says. 

Donald presses the red button. 

The Unstoppabomb’s face alights with a countdown clock, starting at 2:00 and already rapidly counting down. 

“Oh, Gyro,” Della sighs, palming her face. 

There’s a clicking sound as the Unstoppabomb widens, hidden compartments unfolding within the device. Soon it doubles, then triples, then quadruples in size until it’s too big for Donald to hold. 

“Uh, Penny!” Della calls, “we’ve gotta get going!”

“Coming,” Penumbra grits out. She knocks Lunaris to the ground and buries her spear through the collar of his armor mere inches from his head, pinning him to the floor. She holds him down with a boot against his chest and leans over him, casting her shadow over his face. 

“You’ve lost, Lunaris,” she intones, “Not because the moon isn’t mighty, but because you are a coward who uses threats and deception to lead. Our people deserve a better general than you.”

She steps back, staring down at him in disgust. “Farewell, Lunaris.” 

“Wow,” Della mutters under her breath as Donald struggles to carry Scrooge and ready his X-Transformer shield at the same time. “That was kind of hot.”

Donald groans. “Right now? You’re doing this right now?”

Penumbra storms over to them, hardly pausing in her stride as she plucks Della off the ground and holds her under her arm like a football. When she sees Donald struggling she takes Scrooge from him as well, though her grip is infinitely more gentle around their unconscious uncle. 

“What are you standing around for?” she demands. 

Behind them, Lunaris writhes and screams. _ “Lieutenant! _ Lieutenant Penumbra, I order you to free me this instant! _ LIEUTENANT!” _

Without another word, Penumbra leaps out of the empty window. Donald watches her fall for a heart-stopping moment, but he needn’t worry. She slides down the side of the engine, Della whooping under her arm like she's on one of those demented carnival rides she used to drag him on as children. They land solidly on the ice below. 

The countdown on the Unstoppabomb reads 27 seconds.

“You have no idea what’s coming,” Lunaris says. 

Donald looks back at him. The general has stopped struggling, resignation making him go still. But there’s a mad light in his eyes that Donald doesn't like. 

“Do you think I’m the only one after your family?” Lunaris says, chuckling lowly, “Just you wait. There are worse threats hidden in plain sight, foes you won’t even realize are foes until they’ve already buried the knife in your back.”

_ 00:20 _

“You’re crazy,” Donald says, but he feels uneasy in spite of his assertion. 

Lunaris barks a laugh. “Perhaps, Donald Duck. But I have been monitoring your planet for twenty of your Earth years. There is a storm coming your way that you are hilariously unprepared for. Not unlike a freak cosmic storm, hm?”

_ 00:15 _

“What are you saying?” Donald demands, anxiety blooming in his gut. 

Lunaris leers at him. “Do you want to know, or do you want to live?”

_ 00:12 _

Donald growls under his breath and readies his X-Transformer shield. 

He leaps out of the window, in free fall for a few breathless seconds before he activates the shield's anti-grav. He cruises to a gentle stop on the ice and deactivates the shield so that it folds back inside his gauntlet. Before he can look up, he’s tackled to the ground. 

The ice is stone hard and unforgiving, but he isn’t there for long. Della drags him back up so she can throw her arms around him, hugging him so tightly he swears he heard his spine pop. Donald returns the embrace, spine-popping and all, and for the first time in a month feels like he can breathe. 

“I can’t believe my stupid brother is the Duck Avenger,” she mutters, her voice thick with tears. 

“I was hoping you’d forget you saw that,” he grumbles. 

“Fat chance.”

“Not to interrupt the love fest,” Penumbra says, “but how long until this bomb thing of your goes off?”

A concussive explosion rends the air like magnified thunder, and Donald and Della jerk apart. They watch the planetary engine crack horizontally down the middle, then explode outward in a spray of gold and fire. The blazing engine atop the ship flickers and dies as the blast expands for half a second more, before moving inward as it begins to implode. Half of the ship vanishes in a compressed ball of light, leaving the rest to crash down into the ice just as loudly as the explosion and vanish into the water below. 

“So that’s how long,” Penumbra says.

There’s a squawk beside them, and Donald and Della turn to see Scrooge has regained consciousness at Penumbra’s feet, looking rather alarmed by the tall, scowling lieutenant. And in the wake of an alien invasion, she probably isn't the most reassuring sight.

“No, Uncle Scrooge, she’s okay!” Della hastens to reassure him. “That’s Penny! Remember Penny? I told you about her.”

“A-aye,” Scrooge replies shakily, lifting a hand to his bruised temple. “Pleasure to meet you.” He tears his gaze away from Penumbra’s imposing form to glance over at Della, and freezes when he sees Donald kneeling beside her. 

Donald musters a smile and an awkward wave. “Uh. Hi, Uncle Scrooge?”

Scrooge tries to stand but his knees give out beneath him.

“Lad,” he gasps, “Donald. Christ in heaven.”

“I’m sorry—” Donald starts to say. 

“Stuff your sorries,” Scrooge snaps, his eyes filling with tears, “Get over here so I can strangle you for scaring us like that, you empty-headed numpty.”

Donald edges closer to his uncle. The moment he’s within reach, Scrooge drags him into his arms, wrapping his arms around Donald’s shoulders in a tight, trembling embrace. 

“If this is you strangling me then you’re weaker than you look, old man,” Donald mumbles into his shoulder.

“Shut it, you ingrate.”

There’s the sound of running footsteps skidding against the ice, voices raised in jubilation. Donald hears Gladstone and Fethry, Gizmoduck and Launchpad and so many others among the commotion. Then:

“Uncle Donald?”

Scrooge lets Donald go at once, and he sees his four kids standing just out of reach. They’re pale and scared they’re all crying, and Donald is sick to death of making his family cry over him. 

“Kids,” he says, tears choking him, and they dogpile him. He falls back onto the ice but he’s laughing and crying and he can’t breath with the weight of them on his stomach but he doesn’t care. 

“Scared us half to death,” Huey is saying, chastising. 

“We saw the video!” Dewey exclaims, “We thought you were dead!”

“You’re never allowed to go an a cruise ever again,” Louie sobs. 

“We missed you so much,” Webby says, her voice tight and small. 

“Where were you?” they all ask. 

“Yeah, Donald,” Della replies, standing over him with a smirk. “Where _ were _you?”

Donald closes his eyes with a groan. 

“It’s a very long story.”   
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before and after Moonvasion

  
  


Their parents die a month before Christmas. 

Over the next two months, the most they see of Uncle Scrooge is at the funeral. He stands behind them with a hand clenched tight around his and Della’s shoulders as the snow falls soft and heavy in the cemetery. His presence is solid as stone, even with his hat pulled low over his face and a scowl tightening his beak. They may have been orphaned and alone, but they weren’t  _ alone _ . 

But living in the mansion has become not unlike living with a pair of unobtrusive ghosts. Duckworth skirts around them, more taciturn than they’ve ever seen. He doesn’t chastise Della for using a shield to slide down the banister or unplug Donald’s aux cable when he’s practicing guitar too late at night. Duckworth, once a reservoir of dry wit, has gone silent. 

Della says it’s because Duckworth thinks they’re “too sensitive” right now. 

Donald is just frustrated because it’s one more familiar thing they’ve been robbed of. 

As for Scrooge, they see him so rarely it is as though he’s gone and died too. Always shut up in his study or his office at the Money Bin, leaving before they’re awake and returning at odd hours so they always just miss him. They’re practically living with the memory of their uncle more than the man himself. 

He used to take them on adventures, all four of them. Ma would always compete with him to see who could climb a rope vine faster, reach the end of the booby-trapped tunnel sooner, fight the most sky pirates. Donald and Della would team up with her to ensure victory, and Da would trail behind to make sure none of them got hurt in the attempt. 

Now Scrooge avoids them and Della looks for adventure everywhere with no one to guide her. All the while, bitterness wells up in Donald like a wound left to fester and if everyone is so keen on leaving he’d rather they get it over with and just leave him alone for good. 

It’s early January, and it’s bitterly cold on the roof of the mansion. 

Donald regrets going out in just his flannel shirt, but he’s too tired to climb back through the window and get a sweater. He feels like an empty vessel now that his anger’s spent. 

More and more often he’s filled with a rage he can’t control, a rage that in the moment seems without end. He had a bad temper before, inherited from his Ma’s side, but his parents used to be around to talk him through it. Now they’re six feet under and he just gets madder and madder and  _ madder _ , until he nearly explodes with it. His arms go swinging and his vision goes red and he destroys things; important things, fragile things. 

Before it was pillowcases and plates, one time it was a shirt that he kept putting on inside out. Today it was a framed photo of Ma and Da he knocked to the ground and shattered. The photo’s fine, but that didn’t matter to him or Della as they screamed at each other. 

He called her stupid for going on made up adventures by herself.

She said he was a dumb, selfish loner who doesn’t care about anything but himself. 

So he’s on the roof, where the sounds of downtown Duckburg are a faraway bustle, and the cold stings almost as much as the knowledge that he’s ended up the same way he always does: alone. 

Until, suddenly, he isn’t. 

His vision goes dark as a bundle of thick fabric is thrown over his head. Sputtering, and nearly losing his footing on the loose snow piled on the roof, he tugs the blanket off his head so it gathers around his shoulders. 

“Honestly, lad, you’ll freeze your tail feathers off at this rate.”

Scrooge is there, deceiving as a mirage, dropping down onto the roof from the tower window of Donald and Della’s bedroom like this is something they do every day. Like this isn’t the first time he’s acknowledged Donald’s presence in weeks. As he sits on the slope right next to Donald, he lets out a long sigh, as though setting down a heavy burden. Donald hasn’t seen his uncle this close in almost two months, and if he didn’t know any better he’d say he was looking at a stranger. 

His top hat and glasses are nowhere in sight and his feathers are in disarray, as though going days without brushing. There are dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep making it look as though he has two black eyes and lines of stress cut deeply at the corners of his beak. 

He smiles at Donald like he used to when Donald’s parents were still alive and his coat was without wrinkles and his feathers were shiny instead of dull. 

“Della tells me the two of you had a wee spat,” Scrooge says.

_ So you talked to Della before me?  _ some bitter part of him demands he ask, but he swallows the words down. He shrugs. 

“I dunno. We fight all the time.”

Scrooge nods, looking out over the grounds of the mansion, painted stark white with snow. His breath fogs in the air. “Aye. That’s the way of siblings. But you’ll apologize to each other and everything’ll be right as rain.”

Donald wraps himself more tightly in the blanket, too proud to thank Scrooge for it but not foolish enough to reject the warmth it provides. “Like you and Ma?” he asks sardonically. 

Hortense and Scrooge’s arguments had been legendary, and often spurred by something as simple as place settings. They tended to end with their mother putting Scrooge in a headlock and Quackmore breaking them up if he wasn’t bent double with laughter. What had once been a source of constant amusement now only hurts to remember. So it’s with a vindictive sort of pleasure that he witnesses the flash of pain across Scrooge’s face. 

“Your mum and I were a...special exception,” Scrooge says. He looks down, away from the view, interlocking his fingers in his lap. 

“We didn’t grow up together the way Matilda and I did, or you and your sister. She was so young when I left Scotland; I was half afraid she wouldn’t remember me when I came back.” He chuckles, but there’s little humor to the sound. “Coming back to America with me, it was her way of getting to know me. Her mysterious, millionaire big brother whose voice she only heard in the letters he sent home. We were still getting to know each other. Now we’ll never have the chance.”

He cranes his head back, directing his gaze heavenward. The sky is dark and dotted with clouds. A light snowfall has begun, making Donald’s vision seem hazy and the world very quiet. 

“What a bonnie sight that moon is,” Scrooge murmurs, almost muffled by the snow. “Don’t you think, lad?”

Donald glares up at the sky, where the moon hangs luminous and full, a beacon against the dark. “We haven’t seen you in forever,” he bites out. “Where were you?”

Scrooge sighs. He ducks his head, running a hand through his unruly head feathers. “I’ve...been here, but not in any way that counts, I know. And I’m sorry for that, Donald, truly I am. But I needed time to-to process on my own before I could be there for you kids.”

Rage is as familiar to Donald as his mother’s embrace used to be. 

“That’s stupid,” he snaps. 

Scrooge turns to him, whiplike, and levels Donald with a glare that would normally leave him quailing. “My grief is my own, lad.” 

“You left us alone,” Donald retorts, near shouting. He stands up, swaying on the icy roof, trembling in poorly suppressed rage. His eyes burn with unshed tears, to his mingled fury and shame. “Our parents are d-dead and we  _ missed  _ you.”

Something cracks behind Scrooge’s eyes, and he looks older than Donald has ever seen him. 

“That wasn’t—I didn’t mean to. To leave you alone. I wanted to put myself together for you kids, to get my own grief under control first.”

“You left us to celebrate Christmas alone,” Donald says. He tears the blanket off his shoulders and throws it in Scrooge’s face. “Della tried to catch Santa for you.”

Scrooge sputters, fumbling to yank the blanket down. “I'm not saying what I did was right, dinnae understand? I know I messed up, son, but if you’ll just let try and make it up to you and your —”

“Don’t call me that,” Donald snaps, hot tears stinging on his windblown cheeks, “You’re not my dad.”

Scrooge goes silent, stricken. “I know. I’m not—I’m not trying to be.”

Donald tries to glare some more, but he’s too tired and shivering too badly for there to be any genuine ire behind it anymore. So instead he just turns his back on his uncle and marches back to his window. The moon is a silent sentinel at his back, looming and watchful. 

He decides he’ll apologize to Della. They’re all each other has, after all. 

  
  
  


Since he got back from the moon, he’s been living in the ruins of Ducklair Tower. 

Or more specifically, the ruins of the 151st floor. 

The other 150 floors are for gleaming offices of insurance companies, news agencies, and a handful of startups. They’re easy to avoid, as easy as it was ten years ago. 

Donald still remembers all the codes, the secret entrances that Uno used to leave for him to find. He remembers hauling himself back through them half-dead, beaten bloody when his anger had him misreading the danger in a situation. When he got careless and sloppy in his rage and paid the price for it with pain. 

He remembers Uno being there to chastise him, worry rolling off of him in waves; remembers Uno being there, until he wasn’t. 

When he arrives, fresh from the moon and days of overseas travel, he finds everything exactly as he left it. A winding room of technology so futuristic it verges on alien and not a speck of dust in sight, despite the intervening years. Not that Donald expects any less; Uno was fastidiousness personified, he made this place more airtight than the world’s most secure bunker. 

But there’s an old beer can on a console, a parenting book in his old armchair, remnants of an old life. He’d still been the Duck Avenger then, just a few months before the Spear of Selene. 

It’s been ten years since he was here and it’s the silence that gets to him the most. Before Uno was deactivated there would always be computers humming, news reports playing, or Uno talking, even if it was just to himself. One might think it strange for an artificial intelligence to mumble to itself, working on complex equations outloud or creating theories for the next episode of  _ Anxieties _ , the old telenovela Donald watched that Uno claimed to hate but would always put it on one of his screens and hover over Donald’s shoulder while it played. But that was just Uno being Uno. 

And now the stillness is unnatural. The space is filled with the belongings of the dead, what had once been a home reduced to a mausoleum. 

Standing in front of the dark screens is like staring at a corpse.

But Donald forces himself to stay despite the near-physical pain being back here brings him. Because he’s safe from Lunaris’ watchful eye. Because he’s taken up the Duck Avengers mantle once more and all of his weapons, his training rooms, everything he needs to be that man again, is here. 

Because Donald hasn’t felt like himself since he got back from the moon, and what’s one more ghost on the 151st floor?

The moon wasn’t cold but it wasn’t...it just  _ wasn’t _ . It’s the lack of anything that startled him most; no breeze, no grass, no dirt. Sunlight felt weaker, and its rays didn’t warm him. Moon sand is gritty, it stuck to the back of his throat, in the creases between his fingers. He finds it in his feathers days after the fact, and can still taste it on his tongue no matter how much black coffee he swallows. 

After all that, Earth is a sensory overload. A gentle breeze is needles in his skin. The honking horns of traffic on the streets below keep him up at night. Cars backfiring are guns firing at him. He tries soundproofing the 151st floor one night, so he can try to get some actual sleep, and the resulting silence sends him into such a prolonged bout of panic he nearly forgets to grab his X-Transformer shield before he throws himself out the nearest emergency hatch. 

He spends the next three hours before dawn perched on the roof of McDuck Mansion like he used to do as a child. Intermittently, he peers through the nearest window to check in on the individual members of his family, reassuring himself of their safety. But he mostly sits in the dark and lets the icy breeze wash over his face. 

It’s as good a reminder as any that this isn’t the moon. 

  
  


He barely sleeps in the month before the invasion. 

There’s so much to worry about, so much to do. They need reinforcements. They need weapons. They need utmost secrecy. 

Donald takes the stealth ship Uno built for him, grateful that he had the foresight to add an autopilot feature because Donald is no pilot. He flies it to Egypt to recruit the first of their allies. 

Amunet doesn’t know the Duck Avenger but Djinn does, by reputation if nothing else. The important thing is that they believe him and they return to Duckburg with him, accompanied by Amunet’s finest warriors. He brings them to the 151st floor of Ducklair Tower, which is so much bigger than it appears. With the swipe of a few computer keys, brand new rooms emerge from where solid walls used to be to accommodate them all because Uno might be gone but his coding to rearrange the Tower remains in place. 

They can’t risk meeting too publicly, or doing anything that’ll alert the general populace that danger is incoming. Donald remembers all too well the terrifying amount of intelligence Lunaris has gathered on Duckburg, on their enemies, on his family. He’s been watching the Earth for a long time, and right now he’s probably watching them closer than ever.

If Donald does anything to alert Lunaris to what they’re planning, alert him to the fact that he’s still  _ alive _ , the invasion could come tomorrow. He refuses to fail his family like that. 

“Sleep wherever you like, there’s plenty of room,” Donald says as the stealth ship docks. “I can show you to the training rooms and the kitchen before I take off again.”

Amunet and her warriors are wide-eyed as they disembark. They’ve mostly adjusted to the 21st century and its wonders, but he knows the 151st floor of Ducklair Tower is another beast entirely. 

Djinn doesn’t follow them right away, nor does he look mystified by the sheer breadth of technology around them. He has a dry humor and cleverness about him that Donald appreciates, as well as keen eyes that take in unfamiliar surroundings and come to a conclusion without having to bother with questions. Not like Amunet’s people, who after millenia of being denied the ability, are made of nothing  _ but  _ questions. 

However, Donald doesn’t like how those keen eyes remain fixed on him as the rest of his ship’s passengers trickle through the open doorway. 

“Where will you go, Avenger?” Djinn asks before Donald can dash off the landing platform with an asinine excuse. In his smooth, accented voice, Donald’s title holds more weight than it deserves. Makes it sound like something honorable and grand and not a teenager’s excuse to rage against the world and a grown man’s attempt to piece it back together. 

Donald grips the persona of the Duck Avenger in two fists, clutching it tight enough to make his knuckles ache and hands shake. 

“More recruits to round up,” he replies in the Duck Avenger’s confident, resonant tones. “Zeus called Storkules and Selene back to Ithaquack just a few days ago; he probably already knows about the invasion, or at the very least suspects. He’ll have two of the most powerful beings on Earth under house arrest unless I can sneak them out.”

“A noble quest. I wish you luck, Avenger,” Djinn says, ducking his head slightly. “But permit me a question, if you will?”

Donald fights the urge to grimace. “Sure,” he says.

“Even in the Tehran of my childhood we heard tell of the Duck Avenger from Duckburg,” Djinn says, staring down at Donald with inscrutable eyes. “You were a vigilante, a man of great controversy, but ultimately one who intended to do good.” He tilts his head to the side. “You were thought dead for many years, my friend. Since...an oil refinery explosion, I believe?”

An explosion that Donald staged so the Duck Avenger could die, so his nephews could live. 

Donald forces himself to laugh, and with the voice modulator in his collar it almost sounds genuine. “Well the rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated, yadda yadda yadda. Is there a question in there, Djinn?”

“Why have you returned?” Djinn asks with none of the judgement Donald knows he’ll receive from others, not to mention deserve. 

Donald shrugs, smiling and cocksure. “It’s the end of the world. What better time is there to come out of retirement?”

“True,” Djinn says with a shallow nod, “but you did not have to return to the fight. Upon meeting you I did not believe you were the original Avenger. But standing with you now, I see the passage of ages on your face and I know you are one and the same. You have given much to this city. If this invasion is restricted to Duckburg, why not alert Scrooge McDuck? Why take responsibility for readying the city for war?”

He’s met Djinn before, as Donald, and knows that he’s the trusting sort. If Donald makes up a lie, he’ll probably believe it. But by the time the invasion ends, he’ll have lied to a lot of people. Maybe, this time, the truth will suffice. 

“I have a family down there,” Donald says, and wills that his throat won’t close up on the words. He gestures out the stealth ship’s viewport. “My kids. My sister. My fath…” He silences himself, ruthlessly. There’s something to be said of the dangers of being overly candid. 

Djinn seems to understand just the same. 

“There is no worthier cause than fighting to protect one’s family. They are lucky to have you, Avenger.”

Donald chuckles, and even with the modulator it sounds weak to his ears. “Nah,” he says, “I’m the lucky one.”

  
  
  
  


In the wake of the invasion, Donald finds himself perched on the mansion’s roof once more. 

Duckburg is spread out beneath him, glowing softly in the dark. At this distance, the damage the Moonlanders caused is invisible to the eye; one could even imagine that it never happened. Donald certainly wishes that it hadn’t. 

For the past month, his life has revolved around planning the incoming invasion and nothing else. The silence, peaceful though it may be in reality, to him feels fraught. Donald’s heart races in his throat because he hasn’t known peace since long before the moon. 

The weeks he spent trapped in a cell in Tranquility feel as though they happened years ago and just yesterday at the same time. He can still taste black licorice on his tongue, sees the desolate, gray lunar landscape when he closes his eyes. He feels the fire under his skin, his head aching under pressure fit to crack his skull like an egg as he hurtled back to Earth in Lunaris’ escape pod. 

His family isn’t hundreds of thousands of miles away anymore. They’re not even on the other side of the city. His kids, his sister, his uncle; there’s a roof between them now, just a few measly slabs of enchanted wood and stone keeping them apart. But Donald is frozen on the rooftop, a month of nonstop action, anguish, and planning brought terrifyingly to a standstill, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. 

His vision goes dark as a bundle of fabric is thrown at his head. By some miracle he doesn’t tumble off the roof as he sputters and scrambles to pull it down. 

“Ye never learn, do ya?” 

Donald yanks the thick coat off his head in time to see Scrooge descend carefully from the boys’ tower window. The shock manages to unstick his tongue from the rough of his mouth. “It’s not even that cold out,” he says, even he slips his arms through the coat’s sleeves. 

“Aye,” Scrooge admits as he approaches him across the roof shingles, “but I’m nae the one looking dead on their feet.”

“Speak for yourself,” Donald retorts. Scrooge groans as he takes a seat, and this close Donald can see the bruises decorating his temple in sharp relief. They’re only a shade darker than the lines of exhaustion under his eyes. “Lunaris sure packed a punch, didn’t he?” he says quietly. 

Scrooge runs a hand over the back of his head with a huff of laughter and a small rueful smile. “As I’m sure you know all too well.”

His presence is grounding in a way Donald didn’t expect. It reminds him that he’s home, truly home, for the first time since he foolishly climbed into the Spear of Selene. 

“So,” Scrooge says, “the Duck Avenger, then.”

Looking out into the stars, Donald almost wants to laugh. His uncle may be many things, but easily deceived is not one of them. While the kids bought the white lie that Donald returned to Earth with Penumbra, Scrooge wasn’t so easily convinced. It didn’t help that Della wouldn’t shut up about his alter-ego every second they were alone. 

“Yeah,” Donald says, or sighs, rather. 

“All this time,” Scrooge says quietly. “Why on Earth didn’t you come to us?” 

Donald sends him a wry look. “Um...I did? I warned you all about the invasion almost as soon as I was back.”

Scrooge shakes his head. “I mean as  _ yourself _ , Donald. Why didn’t  _ you  _ come home? We had to learn what happened to you from that blasted Lunari s—learn that all this time I could have lost you like I lost your sister and been none the wiser.” He cuts himself off and looks away sharply. His jaw is so tightly clenched that Donald’s face aches in sympathy. 

The decision Donald had made a month ago in utter surety comes back to haunt him, prickling at him in newfound uncertainty. 

“I was trying to protect all of you,” he says. He clasps his hands together, feeling strangely naked without the weight of his X-Transformer shield on his arm. “I knew that people would take me seriously as the Avenger. And anyway, you weren’t supposed to know that I got stuck on the moon.”

“Not supposed to know?” Scrooge barks, and Donald flinches back. “You could have  _ died _ , lad! Frankly, I’m still not sure how you survived! What could have possessed you to make you think we wouldn’t want to know what happened to you?”

“Know what?” Donald demands, his own voice rising in volume as frustration takes hold. “Oh boo hoo, Donald’s bad luck got him stranded on the moon for two weeks. He got beat up a little bit and had to make it home in a tin can. Della was stuck there for eleven years! She lost her leg, she lost the boys—what happened to me is nothing by comparison.”

“You were lost to us for two weeks,” Scrooge says, “that’s not  _ nothing _ . And what if you hadn’t made it back? What if that ship really had burned up in reentry? What then? What of the boys?”

Donald throws his hands in the air. “Well Della’s back isn’t she? The boys get their mom back, you get your niece back; everything’s the way it was supposed to be.”

Scrooge grabs him by the shoulder, turning Donald to face him with a grip that’s near bruising. “Listen here, son,” he says fiercely, “you are not replaceable. Having Della back doesnae mean I—we need you any less. Do you hear me? I know I’ve been hard on you since you and the bairns moved in, but…”  he lets out a huff of quiet laughter. “I’m hard on you ‘cause I’ve missed you. That’s all. Not because I dinnae want you around.” 

“Oh,” Donald says. 

He knows that he would die for his family, a hundred times over, without an ounce of regret. Losing any one of them would destroy him, and has; the first year of Della’s disappearance will remain clouded by grief in his memory. Donald supposes that he never expected the opposite to be true, that he mattered to his family as much as they matter to him. 

But he remembers the devastation on Scrooge’s face all too plainly, on this same rooftop barely twenty-four hours ago. He recalls his uncle’s tears, his kids’ painfully tight embraces. Even now, Scrooge’s expression is imploring, if hesitant. Neither of them is accustomed to this level of sincerity, especially after a decade of separation. 

Donald closes the distance between them, engulfing his uncle in a hug. Scrooge returns the embrace with equal strength, cradling the back of Donald’s head like he hasn’t since he was a child. 

“I’m proud of you,” Scrooge says, “never forget that, no matter what pernicious prattle falls out of my beak.”

“I won’t forget,” Donald replies. “Just promise me you won’t send me on anymore cruises?”

Scrooge’s laugh is more pain than mirth. “Lad, good luck getting us to let you out of our sight, much less send you away again.”

  
  



End file.
